You don’t have to tell me how annoying it is when someone tries to make you smile and you’re just not in the mood. Maybe you’re having a bit of a rough day. Maybe you’re in a fine mood but just don’t feel like walking around with a big grin on your face.
At work, my mentor will often pass me in the kitchen and tell me to smile. Because he’s a nice guy, I smile for the 2 seconds it takes to walk by him and then go back to my regular content-but-not-particularly-joyous face.
But perhaps he is doing me a favor.
I have realized that his suggestion could be improving my life in a couple of ways. First of all, I now subconsciously try to beat him to it by grinning from ear to ear whenever I see him. I think in a way I’m trying to take back control. If I smile unprovoked then it must be because I want to smile, not because someone is telling me to. Because our paths cross frequently in the kitchen, this has become a habit.
Additionally, the simple act of smiling is very likely making me happier.
In the podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin, Gretchen and her sister Elizabeth discuss one of Gretchen’s personal commandments: “Act the way I want to feel”. There is research supporting the idea that your emotions are strongly influenced by your behaviors.
This may seem counterintuitive. Perhaps you were under the impression, like most people are, that we act because we feel. But actually the general scientific consensus is that the action comes first and the related feeling follows.
Try this: if you are in a meeting or class and act more interested by leaning forward and offering more engaged facial expressions, chances are you will actually feel more attentive and intrigued.
Another way to use this as a strategy for positive change in your own life is to walk in a more energetic way. Put a bit more spring in your step! Pick up the pace. You may find that if you have been feeling low on energy, this can help give you a boost.
There is one way that I have really noticed my actions informing my emotions. Unfortunately it isn’t in a way that makes my life happier though.
Because I work in a kitchen that cooks food on a fairly large scale, I often have to do tasks that would seem unbelievable to a home cook. Like slicing 50 pounds of onions.
As you can imagine, this is a task that can make the most emotionally stable people tear up. For me, it often becomes rivers flowing from my eyes. This isn’t the most comfortable way to be but I know that it’s temporary and will be over once I get through all the onions.
After I assure everyone around me that I’m truly fine and not having a major emotional breakdown, I realize that inside my mind I have begun feeling a little less cheerful than before. All of a sudden I find myself thinking about negative things. It’s as if my brain is trying to figure out why I could possibly be so upset. And this has happened on a few different occasions. It was not simply an isolated coincidental event.
The simple physical act of crying makes me feel poorly emotionally. How weird.
I was a little skeptical of the idea that actions influence emotions but this experience has shown me how negative actions can make me feel bad so I feel confident that positive actions will affect me in the opposite manner.
So I will try to smile more. Maybe my go-to facial expression can become a bit more joyous than simply content.
Happy smiling 🙂
Daisies and Bluebirds 